Summer Rain
by her-eyes-fiery-pinpricks
Summary: "Wow." "What? It's nothing." "No, the realness. You can tell it's gonna happen soon." There's a moment of silence, Jess staring at Maybeck as he studies the paper with admiration and curiosity. "Well, I guess I should've expected the rain, then." Oneshot, k-plus to be safe, non-canon. Collab with Alyssa (her-eyes-fiery-pinpricks) and Elle (fantasmic-lol-get-it)


**A bababooey to ya'll! Hello. Prepare for non-canon. Muahah.**

**My dear friend Elle and I have been talking about the CHEMISTRY EVERYONE SEEMS TO IGNORE between Jessica Lockhart and Terrence Maybeck. Well, we've decided to do something about that. We wrote.**

**I had just signed on for my third collab, and I was raving crazy insane, excited/anxious/how the heck did this just happen, so I went onto Ellie's continuing PM thread with me, and said, I'm pretty sure in all caps, "DO YOU WANNA COLLAB?" Her adorable response was "Wait, a fic?" I still hope and pray I haven't scarred her.**

**It took us one week to create this little thingy here over PM. We went back and forth, about every third paragraph/dialogue line, making non-canon wonderfulness. Best week of my life.**

**I'm gonna give it over to the fic. Enjoy the ship that will never happen! JAYBECK FOR LIFE.**

**-Mandy to most/Alyssa to some/her-eyes-fiery-pinpricks to all**

Summer Rain

The jingle of the windchimes that sound whenever the door is open echo throughout the empty shop. Jess frantically steps in, slamming the door, breathing heavy, and dripping wet.

"Well, hello to you too," Maybeck says from behind the scuffed-up sculpting table in the middle of the floor. "Didn't bother to dry off before we went out of the house, did we?"

"Shut up. I don't make the weather."

"Ah, but what's the point of dreaming the future if it won't help you from getting soaked?" Maybeck grins, throwing a semi-dirty towel at her.

Jess rolls her eyes and starts to dry herself, finally noticing that she's the only one there except for him. A groan escapes from her mouth. "Oh, this is just great. I'm early, right? I ran for, like,_ two blocks_ thinking I was late."

"And here I thought you just wanted to catch me alone."

She makes a noise that could be easily translated as _ugh_. "As if I would do that."

"Great. Just great. Real confidence booster."

She drops her sopping handbag next to the door and ambles over to Maybeck. "What's that?" she says, casually leaning her elbows onto the table.

"That-" he says, gesturing to his creation, a gray glop of clay, "is an umbrella."

"That. Umbrella."

"I just started!"

"Clearly." Jess mutters, and sensing a protest from Maybeck, adds, "You know, this reminds me of what I drew last night. Shoot, I hope it didn't get wet!" She goes to get her bag, searching worriedly for the sketch.

"Ah, yes, the great mighty drawing we're all uniting for." Maybeck mocks, watching.

"Ha-ha," Jess answers absentmindedly, finally pulling out a small piece of relatively dry paper. "Phew. It's safe. Mostly."

She hands it out for him to see. He takes it. On the paper is Cinderella Castle. Rain is pouring in slants, covering up most of the architecture. It's startlingly real.

"Wow."

"What? It's nothing."

"No, the realness. You can tell it's gonna happen soon."

There's a moment of silence, Jess staring at Maybeck as he studies the paper with admiration and curiosity.

"Well, I guess I should've expected the rain, then." Jess jokes, snapping out of it. "Maybe I should've brought an umbrella." She gestures towards the clay he'd been shaping earlier. He chuckles.

Jess notices a couple of finished pots in a nearby shelf. "You made those?"

Maybeck grimaces. "I know, they aren't that good, but Jelly was pressuring me."

"Oh."

She gazes out the window that makes up front of the shop. "It's pretty, you know."

"What, me?"

"No. The rain."

Maybeck thinks about this for a second, watching the rain fall down. "You did it justice in your sketch."

A smile begins to form in her face. It's small, but it's there. "Well, after a lifetime of having to draw nightmares, one develops a skill. At least you had a choice."

Maybeck scoffs. "I wouldn't say my work is skilled."

"Terry Maybeck being modest?" Jess teases, an eyebrow raised.

"Anything's possible. But, really. It's summer rain."

"Summer rain?"

"You can see through it. Winter rain is just a big giant mess."

Jess raises that eyebrow again. She then compares the drawing to the torrential downpour outside. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess."

They stare at the window in comfortable silence, both thinking about the spectacle outside.

"I can't understand people who hate rain," Jess sighs.

"Even when it gets you completely soaked and you end up having to spend extra time with me?" He bumps his shoulder against hers.

"Well," she responds, but she doesn't finish her sentence because they're both laughing.

They're done laughing, but only for a little while, because he makes a skeptical face and asks, "'Well?'"

More nervous giggles. "Well, it's not so bad."

That shuts him up.

"Here," he says, gesturing to his clay creation. In less than two minutes, he molds it to a shape that's most definitely an umbrella. She intently watches, seeing the swift way his hands form the handle and the top. She wonders what color it would be.

"Well, what color do you like?" Maybeck asks, and she blushes, realizing she'd been thinking aloud.

"You tell me. You're the color expert." Jess replies, wondering why she's being so inadvertent.

"Well, I've always liked the color of your eyes. How they're gray but can look light blue or green sometimes." He tells her, turning to look at said eyes.

That stops her cold. _Really? My eyes have a color?_ And more importantly, _he_ notices?

Well, there's no difference in him noticing them and someone else. Right? _Right?_

"Uh...thanks."

"You bet."

Silence. Jess hates the quiet, because in reality she really wants to scream. What is happening?

Clearly, the silence is making Maybeck uncomfortable, too, since after a long minute he put his palms in front of him and turned towards her. "Look, I'm sorry if I freaked you-"

"No, no, it's alright. You were nice." Jess is aware she sounds flustered, and she wonders how the air could've felt so light just a couple minutes ago. She tries to meet his eyes to avoid this turning even more awkward, but she finds _he's _avoiding_ her's_.

She blinks. An embarrassed Maybeck isn't an every-day sight.

She looks at his hands, and clay is smeared over his finger, changing the color from a dark chocolate to a light gray-

_Oh my God, what am I doing?_ She backs away, turning to go get her handbag as an excuse. _I am not looking at him longer than 5 seconds!_

"You know, I used to be scared of you." Maybeck calls from his spot. "Didn't even begin to trust you."

"Oh, are we talking about my evil persona now?" Jess turns to look at him, happy to have something to talk about. "Didn't little thirteen year old Terry have a crush on me?"

"Yeah, but we were...thirteen?" he said, his eyes not leaving the sculpture, covering up flawlessly. Not even blushing.

"Yeah."

"But you didn't look thirteen."

"Excuse me?"

He laughs, winking at her.

Jess stares at him, her mouth slightly open. _Oh my_ God. "Well, no wonder I tricked your thirteen year old _pig_ self into a trap so easily."

He raises a finger at her. "Hey, now, that's going too far."

"Really? 'Cause you just went there yourself."

Silence. Broken emerald eyes look at overconfident brown eyes. _So, we've come full circle._

"Fine, then. Truce?"

"Truce."

"You know, I'm kind of glad you got here early." Maybeck tells her.

"Was that sarcastic?"

"No, I'm being honest." Maybeck says, making a face. "When was the last time we had time to chat, just you and me, for more than five minutes?"

Jess thinks about it for a second. "Some time ago."

"I don't even remember when."

"Me neither."

"Well. So it's good we talked." she rationalizes, trying to convince herself. But inside she knows she needs no convincing.

"Yeah."

"This is weird. You're never nice to me." Jess jokes, glancing at him with mock suspicion.

"Me?" Says Maybeck, giving her a small grin. "I'm always nice when it comes to you."

He's staring at her, _intently,_ and she really tries to not look at him for more than a couple of seconds. Really. But he's slowly coming closer to her, and he gets a look in his eyes she's never seen in him before.

_Wow,_ is all she can think. _Wow. They're brown eyes. They are so deep and dark and full of so many things. I wonder if they're secrets or joys. No matter what, I wanna know._

So she leans in closer.

He leans in, too. Her brain doesn't even have the time to register what's happening, all she knows is that she _wants_ it to happen. And judging by the look on his eyes, Maybeck wants it, too.

Her eyes are closing, and they're getting closer, closer, and-

"Hey, Maybeck, did you get my text on-WHAT THE-"

"HUH? _HUH?"_ Maybeck recoils, immediately pulling away and not daring to look at Philby in the eyes. "We did nothing. There was nothing!"

"Nothing!" Jess chimed in.

"I didn't say there was...anything..." Philby trails off, shrugging. Silence.

"Oh, okay, 'cause there was none..." Jess spits out.

Philby's eyes go from Jess to Maybeck, studying the situation. Finally, he shakes his head. "Oh, God, this is one thing I don't want to know."

_"Good,"_ Maybeck says. "Because there's nothing to know."

And, thankfully for Jess, Philby continues his earlier sentence without hesitating. "Maybeck, did you get my text about moving the DHI server? You didn't text me back."

"Oh, yeah, I was just...sculpting." Maybeck gestures to his umbrella.

And they start talking about DHI-something-or-another, leaving Jess to get lost in her thought. The Keepers come streaming in, greeting her, Jess waving wordlessly.

Maybeck keeps trying to make eye-contact with her, but she avoids him, still trying to process what had happened. This was _Maybeck._ There shouldn't have been anything to process.

The meeting goes as it normally does: Jess shows the drawing, there's bickering, Finn tries to stop the bickering, Philby explains something, Willa helps him, Maybeck makes jokes, Charlene helps with the strategy. It's unsurprisingly usual.

She just doesn't feel as she usually does.

**Thanks for reading! This was really fun to write and I hope you enjoyed it :D AND EVERYTHING MANDY SAID CAUSE SHE'S BETTER AT AUTHOR NOTES THAN I AM. NOT REALLY. JK. I'M BOSS. MUAHAHA.**

**~fantasmic-lol-get-it/Elle**


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